Flicker of Hope
by LightofaNewDawn
Summary: If she hadn't died, if she hadn't been lost forever…what limits would she push to find him safe and sound?


**A/N: **A little something that came up in my head while I was playing in Palumpolem. I don't know if I should keep it one chapter long, or expand on it yet. But for now, this is what it is.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything from Square Enix...sadly... ='D

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She was pretty sure that this was what Pulse sounded like.

Thousands of sounds were blended around her. The deep rumble of abundant gunshots, the terrified screams of the bullets' targets, the desperate cries of the next victims…

Carnage. Annihilation. Death. She was in a battlefield.

She forced her eyes to open, pushing away the drowsiness that was consuming her. She couldn't simply lie there sleeping. Not if she wanted to stay alive.

She sat up, feeling a terrible ache in her back as she pushed herself off the cold, metallic ground. Heaped around her were corpses of those who died in vain. They were all soaked with blood and sweat, leaking their own body fluids. She looked around, and gasped in sheer horror at the sight of the corpse right next to hers.

It was a little boy. His face was frozen in a heartbreaking expression of bewilderment and terror. Tears trailed from his glazed, sightless eyes, carving clean streaks on his grimy cheeks, His mouth was open in a silent scream that would never come out.

_Bang! Crash!_

The woman strained herself to look away. She couldn't bear to look at the child. So young…yet he had to suffer a tragic fate. This little boy didn't deserve to die. No. What could this boy have done if he was still breathing? No one would ever know – not in this world, at least.

She couldn't stay there for long. Not while she was lying in the middle of a warzone. She forced herself to stand up, attempting to ignore the sharp, throbbing pain in her back. If she was alive, she'd have to get out of there in order to live.

She slowly stood up and scoped the scene around her. The woman was standing on a derelict bridge, far above some kind of lake. Countless bridges spanned the huge, dark expanse stretched out over the lake. Many intricate machines and vehicles were piled around the bridges, bathing the night in a deep green glow. All around her, she could hear gunfire and victims screaming pure bloody murder. There were thousands of sparks to match them, and falling debris raining down from the highest conduits. Some of them were dead bodies.

She shivered and focused on the road ahead of her. She had to get out. She needed to stay alive if possible. Stepping over myriads of corpses, she forced herself to avoid glimpsing at the faces of the dead. The woman couldn't bear to see any more of the victims. The image of the deceased boy popped up in her head again. Those wide, terrified eyes…

That was an image she knew she'd remember for the rest of her life. It was permanently scarred into her brain. An image that would haunt her and remind her of the day she cheated death. The day that young, innocent boy had not.

She was still hidden from sight. The PSICOM troops were on the uppermost bridges. She had fallen onto one of the lower ones, where the bodies of the dead accumulated like masses of slaughtered meat. If she could lay low and find other survivors, perhaps she'd have a chance of survival.

But just then, something producing a beeping sound dropped out of the sky and landed a few feet away from her. Her eyes widened as she recognized the device, and immediately dove behind a mound of wrecked bridge parts. The grenade detonated, though she realized it was only a flash grenade. But it meant someone had caught her. She'd be joining those fallen Purgees soon…

"Hey! Down there! She's alive!" a husky voice called. She froze in utter horror and clenched her teeth, awaiting a barrage of gunfire to follow.

Instead, several people dropped down from a higher bridge. But these weren't PSICOM soldiers. Their clothes were too torn and their eyes too desperate to be soldiers. Some of them held machine guns salvaged from the PSICOM supplies. They were Purge survivors.

"Good to see you made it," a man with stiff navy hair said grimly. "We were pretty sure we'd find no one combing over this area."

"I'm glad you did so," she replied. The woman's voice was hoarse, but she knew she'd recover soon enough.

"Are there any others you've seen down here?" a raven-haired woman asked.

"Not that I know of."

"We should keep looking." A blonde-haired man inspected the tip of his spear, obviously wearing out from excessive usage against PSICOM. "There's got to be more survivors."

"We'll try searching everywhere we can," the navy-haired man said. "But if we stick around, there's no guarantee that we'll make it out ourselves."

"I'm Autumn, by the way." The woman with auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail stepped forward, a forced smile on her face.

"I'm Jesse," the raven-haired woman added, cracking her knuckles and flashing her chocolate brown eyes in mild boredom.

"People call me Cid," the blonde dragoon said. "That redhead over there is Aragon." He pointed to a man with flaming red hair and impressive cerulean eyes to contrast. "That guy there with the fancy shotgun is Balthier." A man with honey-colored hair and irises like gray mist raised his hand in greeting while inspecting the caliber of his firearm.

"My name is Benjamin." The navy-haired man stepped forward and gave a curt nod. His eyes were a deep shade of sapphire, almost glowing in the dim lights bathing them.

"Hey, where's Fayth?" Linda creased her brow in concern. "Did we accidentally leave him behind?"

"I'm up here!"

One more body plummeted from the sky and landed ungracefully onto his bottom, provoking stifled chuckles from within the small group. Fayth's cheeks tinted pink as he scrambled up and brushed his dirt-streaked clothes.

He wasn't as old as her, or as old as anyone else in the small group. Fayth was a young adolescent, fourteen at the most. His hair was deep cobalt, almost black, and his eyes matched the captivating ones of Benjamin. It didn't take long for the woman to realize that Fayth was Benjamin's son. The resemblance was uncanny.

Benjamin ruffled Fayth's unruly hair, confirming her theory as the boy smiled sheepishly up at his father. The little scene was heart-warming, despite the tense, exhausted expressions on the two of them. But she couldn't help but feel a sense of something forgotten.

Another teenager…Fayth vaguely reminded her of…

Her son. Her _own_ son_. _She had left him behind.

No, she didn't. That man…is he still alive? Is her son still alive? Did he hear her plea? Are they safe?

What would happen to them? To _him?_

"Hey, so what's your name?" Benjamin asked, breaking the woman's concentration.

She turned her head to his general direction, while she was actually staring off a thousand miles away. Her mind was swimming with desperate thoughts.

"I need to find my son," she whispered. "He's in trouble…"

Benjamin blinked, obviously not knowing what to say. She knew well enough that he couldn't promise anything. It already might be too late.

"It'll be okay," Autumn said soothingly, laying a hand on her shoulder. The woman was getting aggravated by the auburn lady's empty words. "We'll try to find him, if we can manage to stay alive long enough here. But our main priority is to get out. Fast."

She knew that as well as they did. But her heart was crumbling to ashes, in anxiety of what her son might be doing. There was little possibility that he was still alive. Unless some kind of miracle had happened, she was sure that his body had already joined the other dead ones. Her heart raced and her head throbbed incessantly in agonizing worry.

"We have to move," Benjamin said softly. "We'll try to look for your son. Just keep your eyes open."

She focused on Benjamin, and slowly, she nodded. They'd have to stay on the run in order to remain veiled under PSICOM's radar. Knowing that lamenting would not buy them any more time, the pain-stricken mother took Benjamin's outstretched hand and rose. Unarmed and in a haze, she began to follow the party.

But she wasn't going to leave without finding her son. She'd run straight into the damn core of the fal'Cie if it meant getting him back. If he was still alive, there was no way she'd leave him to die in this warzone.

The group began making their way around the corpses, calling out and listening for any response. As she followed closely behind, she stepped beside Benjamin, keeping her eyes forward. "Can you handle a machine gun?"

"I've used it once."

She found one placed into her hands, and gripped it firmly. _Moms are tough, _she reminded herself. Of course they are. They'd go to the deepest bowels of hell to protect their children. They won't go down without a fight."

"By the way, my name is Nora. Nora Estheim."


End file.
